CLEVELAND – The Indians made a game of it Tuesday night when it looked like it was going to be a Twins runaway, but in the end it wasn’t enough, as Minnesota for the second straight day beat the Tribe 10-6 at Progressive Field.
Sitting at one point with a comfortable lead in the AL Central, the Tigers have closed in on the Indians now to just three games, and with plenty more baseball left it’s no longer a for sure that the Indians are going to be playing October baseball.
“I’m worried about what we have in this clubhouse,” Indians shortstop Francisco Lindor said about the shrinking lead. “I’ll let you guys worry about that. At the end of the day what is going to happen is going to happen, God has a plan.”
The 15,835 were mostly quiet as the Twins pounded Indians starter Carlos Carrasco for four runs in the third and another four in the fourth as Minnesota built an 8-0 lead.
Carrasco in his last three home starts has allowed 16 runs in 13.1 innings, and it could spell big trouble for the Indians who already have one starter on the DL with the team placing Danny Salazar on the 15-day disabled list Tuesday.
“When you do something wrong you are going to pay for it, that’s what happened,” Carrasco said after the loss.
The issues for Carrasco started with the long ball, as Twins second baseman Brian Dozier hit his 20th homer to get the Twins going in the 3rd, and then Max Kepler, who hit three homers Monday night, hit another two-run bomb to make it 4-0.
Carrasco was chased in the 4th, as another Dozier ground out made it 5-0, and then Joe Mauer doubled to score a run to make it 6-0. Miguel Sano hit another double to make it 8-0.
The stat line for Carrasco read 3.2 innings, eight runs on nine hits with two walks, a strikeout and two homers allowed.
“On a night where we were trying to get him deep enough into the game where we don’t get our bullpen into a mess, just didn’t think we could stay with him any longer,” Indians manager Terry Francona said of Carrasco.
Kyle Gibson shut the Indians down for the first four innings, but finally the Tribe offense got going in the 5th with a huge inning to get back into the game.
All six Tribe runs came with two outs, as Carlos Santana hit a two-run homer to make it 8-2, and then two batters later Francisco Lindor hit a single down the left field line to score Jason Kipnis to make it 8-3.
Mike Napoli crushed a two-run homer 454-feet to get it to 8-5, and then Lonnie Chisenhall doubled to score another run to bring the Indians within two at 8-6 with plenty of baseball left.
The bullpens would be in play the rest of the night, with the Twins pen holding the Indians in check, with the Indians pen doing the same – until the 9th.
It was the final frame for the Twins where they sealed the game for good, as Eduardo Escobar put the game away with two outs and two strikes in the inning with a two-run blast off Austin Adams to make it 10-6.
Wednesday the Indians will look to break the two-game losing streak at home, as they send Trevor Bauer (7-4, 3.64) out against Tyler Duffey (5-8, 6.12) at 7:10pm
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